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Answers in #%#@$ Genesis?!?

Posted on: April 19, 2009 - 9:50am

HisWillness

Posts: 4100

Joined: 2008-02-21

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Answers in #%#@$ Genesis?!?

Some of you may know that I've been trying to find the common source for all this nonsense about "worldview" that Paisley, AtheismIsNonsense, caposkia, truden, et al have been peddling. They use the same words to express the same ideas, and often defeat arguments that nobody has raised (strangely, they all use the same ones).

So I decided to Google "materialistic worldview", as they all use that as a phrase, and "worldview" as a compound word, which is unusual in English.

But I can't help but feel a little let down. I admit that my arguments are often not as good as, say, nigel's, Bob's, Hamby's, todangst's, deludedgod's (actually, I could just keep going, so let's stop there), so I'll borrow ideas from those guys, and re-work them in a way that makes sense to me. But using someone else's stuff verbatim? That's just embarrassing.

If I've been arguing with Jason Lisle this whole time, could you guys please pick up another book? Maybe two? If your victory is so obviously assured, then maybe you can do some research yourselves. Y'know, start at Plato. Because that's where Dr. Lisle started, and who knows? You might come up with something good.

Sweet Jesus on a pancake. (Wait! I just betrayed my incipient god-belief!)

Thanks for the sleuthing. I'll go straight to the source for a bit of automasochism, and maybe strengthen some of the arguments against this line of "reasoning."

"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers

For visitors from C&L: You can still enter the Answers in Genesis Contest. Get a crank paper published in the new "peer-reviewed" Answers Research Journal and you will win a gift certificate to Amazon. The difference between your crank paper and the crank papers that they already publish is that YOU will come out and expose the hoax on this site! Follow the link for details.

Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.

Sweet Jesus on a pancake. (Wait! I just betrayed my incipient god-belief!)

Thanks for the sleuthing. I'll go straight to the source for a bit of automasochism, and maybe strengthen some of the arguments against this line of "reasoning."

I think we've heard them all by now. That explains all the recycling, at least. There's a link to a part of answers in genesis called "Fool-proof apologetics", but it's only open to subscribers. Pretty sure that's what's going on.

I think we've heard them all by now. That explains all the recycling, at least. There's a link to a part of answers in genesis called "Fool-proof apologetics", but it's only open to subscribers. Pretty sure that's what's going on.

Yeah. That's what it appears to be: massive recycling of the "materialistic atheism can't account for logic" meme. Of course, as a materialistic atheist (or physicalistic atheist, I guess), I certainly can account for the basis of logic: it's fundamental to the properties of matter and energy, and the relationships between matter and energy.

For instance, the whole non-contradiction example used in what's-his-face's essay is easily explained by materialism. Something can't simultaneously exist and not exist, for instance. That's a fundamental property of matter. It either exists, or it doesn't. That seems pretty simple, and comes directly from materialism. Nor can matter exist in two places at once (such as in his proposed "car-in-the-parking-lot" example). Take that, Lisle!

And he said it couldn't be done.

Logic itself is our own abstraction of these properties and relationships, of course. Ultimately, our logic systems are based firmly in the physical.

The core of Lisle's (and his ardent followers) argument is based on an energetic misunderstanding of what "materialism" means. Of course materialism includes something that is immaterial: relationships between entities that exist. (These entities can be matter or energy.) These relationships are not themselves physical, per se, but are built from combinations of properties, which are themselves very much based on materialism.

It seems Lisle, et al, have created a cartoon strawman, and seem to be content to let that stand for their understanding of atheism.

At least, that's what I'm taking away from both the essay, and AtheismIsNonsense's arguments. AIN has had this explained to him several times, and yet he continues to pretend that we believe in the very limited conception of "materialism" he, Lisle, and Paisley understand.

"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers

I think the first thing I ever asked Paisley to do (while being flippant, admittedly) was provide evidence for a 6,000 year old Earth. His retort was a snooty, "...Well, I don't have to do that, because that's not the worldview I'm espousing! STRAWMAN!"

Will? You're now my favoritest person here. This is just gold.

Quote:

"Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."

For instance, the whole non-contradiction example used in what's-his-face's essay is easily explained by materialism. Something can't simultaneously exist and not exist, for instance.

Haha! It's amazing how funny it can get discussing these things with supernaturalists. You end up making statements like, "um, something can't simultaneously exist and not exist. Are you with me?"

Seriously, there have been times when I thought I was taking crazy pills with these guys. "So can we agree that Santa doesn't exist, right?"

nigelTheBold wrote:

The core of Lisle's (and his ardent followers) argument is based on an energetic misunderstanding of what "materialism" means.

That much has been illustrated by Paisley. Atheistic Materialism, by Paisley's definition, I think involves believing that the world is a turtle, and disease comes from evil swamp gases.

nigelTheBold wrote:

It seems Lisle, et al, have created a cartoon strawman, and seem to be content to let that stand for their understanding of atheism. At least, that's what I'm taking away from both the essay, and AtheismIsNonsense's arguments. AIN has had this explained to him several times, and yet he continues to pretend that we believe in the very limited conception of "materialism" he, Lisle, and Paisley understand.

That's about it. From what caposkia said, he already read a couple of versions of the same message (obviously "The quest for the unholy grail" which even the least educated among us can refute without much difficulty) but I think it's from the same pool.

Becky Garrison, David Berlinski, David Marshall, and Anthony Flew all seem to be peddling the same straw men.

Becky Garrison, David Berlinski, David Marshall, and Anthony Flew all seem to be peddling the same straw men.

And our dear friend, Marty Fields. He, at least, was subtle in his argument, and knowledgable in execution.

Still wrong, but at least he was intelligently wrong.

"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers

He and I carried on in email for a short time, but both our lives got too hectic to try to keep up. I still have his emails; I'm just too embarrassed to try to pick up where we left off a year ago.

That's the first place I heard this argument, though. At least he tried to use logic and philosophy, rather than just saying, "The universe can't do X!" and then try to attribute X to god. And he didn't just constantly make the same assertions without trying to back them up with logic.

I miss Marty.

"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers

The core of Lisle's (and his ardent followers) argument is based on an energetic misunderstanding of what "materialism" means. Of course materialism includes something that is immaterial: relationships between entities that exist. (These entities can be matter or energy.) These relationships are not themselves physical, per se, but are built from combinations of properties, which are themselves very much based on materialism.

Argh, so close, Nigel. It's one of my personal frustrations that the 'physical' is so often conflated with the 'material'. Specifically, 'immaterial' does not necessarily mean 'non-physical'.

Even more specifically, those relationships you speak of are not non-physical. When you say that they are "not themselves physical per se", you are adding to the confusion. Yes, they are physical.

One of my first attempts at defining 'information' was to say that information is the physical relationship between matter/energy within spacetime. I meant that quite literally, which is why I said "argh" when you essentially called these relationships (i.e. information) non-physical just then.

Information is absolutely physical. It is crucial to understand this and also to articulate it, because it is this misunderstanding which is largely at the root of the confusion between supernaturalists and naturalists.

So, yes, scientific materialism, aka physicalism, includes something 'immaterial'. Actually, it includes several things which are immaterial. Information is one of them. Others are space, time, and physical forces. None of these are themselves matter or energy, and yet it is proper to say that they exist.

The relationships between entities *are* information. Information is 'immaterial', but it is physical. That is why the word 'materialism' is so often misunderstood, and is just now falling out of favour in deference to the more-accurate word 'physicalism'.

I have found, however, that saying 'information is physical relatinships' is confusing to many people, and so I've gone with the more straightforward 'information is the state of the universe' phrasing. However, they are actually one and the same. The state of the universe *defines* the relationships between entities, and the relationships between entities *define* the state of the universe.

It seems, however, that people don't think that way. That does not jive with our colloquial and intuitive concepts of 'information'. And yet, it is accurate and true. Whenever you talk about information in a colloquial or intuitive sense, you are talking about relationships between entities, and also talking about the state (or a subset of the state) of the universe.

I hope to keep hammering this point away, because it is so important. When people gain a clear conception of how information is a critical part of the universe as we know it, so many other things fall in place conceptually. Questions such as 'what is life?' 'what is consciousness?' etc. fall away and become simply obvious.

Questions such as 'how does the materialist atheist account for X?' also become no-brainers.

Not only that, but we suddenly understand *why* these questions are continually asked, over and over. It is because most people do not have a solid conception of what information is, and so they think that materialism (and physicalism) are 'missing' something.

It's all information. Even atoms themselves are information, embodied in matter. An electron alone is not an atom. A proton alone is not an atom. When the two are in a particular *relationship*, when their *state* is in a particular configuration, only *then* are they an atom.

Our personalities are defined by information stored in our brains' neuronal structures. Emotions are particular states and processes (dynamic information) we experience.

The 'spiritual' is a funny thing. When people talk of 'spirit', they are often, unknowingly, speaking of information. The word itself, 'spirit', comes from a word meaning 'breath', and many ancient people thought that people's breath was literally their spirit. When you 'give the spirit', you do so by spreading a certain feeling or emotion through word of mouth and body language, both of which are methods of transmission of information.

The 'spiritual' is an attitude toward mystical information. A spiritual book is a book that uses metaphor, myth, and storytelling to spread inspirational ideas. Evil spirits are often confused with dangerous ideas. To be possessed by a spirit is to be experiencing a trance related to a certain idea or ideal.

I could go on. These 'spiritual' ideas are very vague and hard to pin down, but what they are really referring to is information. This is an intuitive way of describing real events using the supernatural term 'spirit' in place of the natural reality of information. Often this real, natural information is quite literally 'all in their heads', as in the case of a person who claims to have a personal relationship with Jesus.

The word 'spirit' exists and is in use today *precisely* because people do not have a good understanding of information, and lacking this understanding, they grope for an explanation of real phenomena that are actually manifestations of physical information. The word 'spirit' is sufficient for them to fill this gap in understanding, and so they use it. Unfortunately, it is a false idea, just as the idea of a 'life force' (elan vital) is a false explanation for living chemical processes. It is wrong, but it makes intuitive sense when you have no better explanation.

When we finally, one day, present a clear and intuitive understanding of the physical reality of information, 'spirit' and 'spiritual' will finally lose their grip on the populace.

Unfortunately, right now, information theory is both new and difficult for most people to grasp. We have a colloquial understanding of the word 'information' that is stunted and weak. People associate information with human perception and understanding, they do not see it as a fundamental part of the entire universe. They see information in very narrow terms: "I informed the doctor." "I get my information from NPR." "I don't have enough information to make a decision." "This disk holds 6 GB of information."

And yet, everything we deal with on a daily basis is deeply linked with information. This entire website is information. The thoughts in your head are information. The DNA code that defines your cells and body is information. Our governments and corporations are information. Books, TV, movies, radio, etc. are all information, but so too are cities, houses, food, the weather, the Sun, the Earth. Pretty much anything you can think of is matter/energy in particular physical relationships within spacetime.

Personally, I think the rise of computers and computer science has helped us to form more concrete ideas of what information truly is. I think we will finally make a serious breakthrough when we develop a complete cognitive model of consciousness. When a machine can think, it will be hard to deny the reality that consciousness is a form of information processing. When we can read your mind with a machine, know what you're thinking, and detect when you're lying, and what you're feeling, it will be hard for people to deny that we really are biological machines, albeit incredibly sophisticated ones.

Argh, so close, Nigel. It's one of my personal frustrations that the 'physical' is so often conflated with the 'material'. Specifically, 'immaterial' does not necessarily mean 'non-physical'.

D'oh! Mea culpa! I did say "physical" where I should've used "material." You are absolutely right. That's why I called out a preference for "physicalism" over "materialism." And yet I did it myself.

I am in 100% agreement. I like to think my understanding of the nature of the universe is more nuanced due to my computer science background. ("More nuanced" as compared to my understanding without my CS background.)

What's funny is, I once mentioned information as an example of something "immaterial" during a debate with Paisley. He immediately jumped on that, saying I wasn't really a materialist atheist or somesuch, and that I must have an incipient belief in god. Whatever.

Anyway, I tried to explain that information doesn't exist outside the material. As information is nothing more than properties and relationships of the material, it is really nothing more than an aspect of the material. He said I must have an incipient god-belief, or an incoherent worldview.

Thanks for calling me on that. I've got to break the habit of equating the "material" and the "physical." Both words are confusing enough as it stands.

"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers

Personally, I think the rise of computers and computer science has helped us to form more concrete ideas of what information truly is. I think we will finally make a serious breakthrough when we develop a complete cognitive model of consciousness. When a machine can think, it will be hard to deny the reality that consciousness is a form of information processing. When we can read your mind with a machine, know what you're thinking, and detect when you're lying, and what you're feeling, it will be hard for people to deny that we really are biological machines, albeit incredibly sophisticated ones.

I forgot to ask before -- are you doing a degree in computer science or something?

If you think about it, gambling is just one way of looking at epistemology. They both attempt to make predictions. Science can be seen as 'gambling' on theories. The only difference is that there's no money inherently involved in science.

Imagine wagering with the only goal to be correct in your predictions. That's basically science in a nutshell. Money only comes into it because people have to eat.

Information theory as I'm talking about it is more to do with the nature of the universe itself. Maybe there are some side-benefits in that you can use some of its ideas for gambling, but that's hardly the main thrust of the research.

By the way, you say "it's still just math". But I would say, "math is just a system, and systems are just information."

By the way, you say "it's still just math". But I would say, "math is just a system, and systems are just information."

Okay, I see what you mean now. You're using it as a generalized mathematical framework. I'm with you there, for sure. But you're right, since I've only been considering the problem seriously for the purposes of trading, I'm sure I've only scratched the surface.

Okay, I see what you mean now. You're using it as a generalized mathematical framework. I'm with you there, for sure. But you're right, since I've only been considering the problem seriously for the purposes of trading, I'm sure I've only scratched the surface.

Seriously. Information theory is in its infancy. And it is theory: heavy, heavy theory. There's set theory (vital for both databases and thinking about information). There's statistics, which is meta-information theory: statistics help determine the validity of information. You've got proofs for the minimum requirements for a language capable of expressing any algorithm (thank you, Alan Turing). You have proofs that no language can be both complete, and unable to express contradictions (Goedel, with the umlaut). You have theorems that describe estimating errors in calcuations. Fractals came out of information theory research concerning chaos. And so on.

Information theory is one of the most fascinating new fields of research in years. It's already changing how we look at both biology and physics, and I suspect it will affect many other fields of study.

Anyway, that's just me loving on information theory. It really does give me a chubby.

"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers

I love it! What a funny website - thanks for pointing it out to us Will.

Some priceless stuff there, like this one:

Quote:

The atheist might say, “Well, I can reason just fine, and I don’t believe in God.” But this is no different than the critic of air saying, “Well, I can breathe just fine, and I don’t believe in air.” This isn’t a rational response.

Fucking right it's not. A rational response to “Well, I can reason just fine, and I don’t believe in God.” would be "Well, I can breathe just fine, and I don't believe Da Vinci was a sardine in drag."

What is an "air critic" anyway? Is there a campaign to abolish it in the US?

When bullshitters have gone so far up their own anus that they meet their utterances travelling in the opposite direction it should really give them pause for thought. But thinking requires effort - it's easier to write a blog.

The atheist might say, “Well, I can reason just fine, and I don’t believe in God.” But this is no different than the critic of air saying, “Well, I can breathe just fine, and I don’t believe in air.” This isn’t a rational response.

Fucking right it's not. A rational response to “Well, I can reason just fine, and I don’t believe in God.” would be "Well, I can breathe just fine, and I don't believe Da Vinci was a sardine in drag."

AH-hahahaha!

Haha!

Hehe.

Whoo!

Oh. *tear* It's so true.

Nordmann wrote:

What is an "air critic" anyway? Is there a campaign to abolish it in the US?

No idea. I'm still waiting for the states to try and steal our water as a matter of aquatic manifest destiny.

Nordmann wrote:

When bullshitters have gone so far up their own anus that they meet their utterances travelling in the opposite direction it should really give them pause for thought. But thinking requires effort - it's easier to write a blog.

So terribly, painfully true. The one tv show I've seen (and enjoyed) recently is the new Dr. Who (new=2005). At one point, a couple of characters are nattering away at each other, and the Doctor says, "Will you two quit blogging!"

Sweet Jesus on a pancake. (Wait! I just betrayed my incipient god-belief!)

Thanks for the sleuthing. I'll go straight to the source for a bit of automasochism, and maybe strengthen some of the arguments against this line of "reasoning."

I think we've heard them all by now. That explains all the recycling, at least. There's a link to a part of answers in genesis called "Fool-proof apologetics", but it's only open to subscribers. Pretty sure that's what's going on.

Guess they didn't like getting owned to the point that multiple sites on the net had devoted themselves to irrefutably ripping apart every claim AIG makes, so they had to make a secret area. If only I knew someone who was a subscriber; since I won't donate to such a group even in the interest of destroying them, unless their destruction is guaranteed of course.

HisWillness wrote:

Kevin R Brown wrote:

Will? You're now my favoritest person here. This is just gold.

Clearly your understanding of me is a STRAWMAN!

Let me just check my back pocket for my STRAWMAN!!

Hold on, I have to go out for a second to get some STRAWMAN!!

...

I could do this all day.

It occurs to me that theists are whiny about the fact that they have to make up arguments to defeat in order to win a debate on the subject matter. The typical response is to point out the fact that they're making things up. This is the backswing. Of course it lacks substance like anything else in the theist argumentative repertoire, but that isn't really surprising.

See the shadow boundary on the right of his head?That's the Terminator's terminator!

... I almost died when I read that. I saw it coming from a mile away, but I was wholly unabel to prepare myself. Still, I think he meant penumbra, even if it's not as comical.

BigUniverse wrote,

"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."

Agreed. But doesn't the Terminator look strangely friendly in this picture? It almost looks like he's smiling.

"Hi, kids. I'm a Terminator. If you think that someone has touched you in an inappropriate place, make sure to tell your parents. Unless, of course, it is one of your parents, in which case, I'll be right over."

Yeah, it's kind of eerie. You know ... what if it's the Terminator who's tryin' to lure the kids with that thin-lipped-Harper-pedo-smile? Huh? (He's actually so thin-lipped he hasn't got any. You can't get more Harper-pedo-smiled than that.)

BigUniverse wrote,

"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."

Interesting. I didn't notice the tilt so much. When I tilt my head I can definitely see it. There it is, the Friendly Terminator.

BigUniverse wrote,

"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."